


A heart like yours in a time like this

by lilith_morgana



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Ruthless (Mass Effect), Spacer (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: Eden Prime breaks them out of their habits. That's how it starts for her.Bits and pieces of Alexandra Shepard and Kaidan Alenko, ME1 through ME3.





	1. Spectre

**Author's Note:**

> So, as I'm re-playing the ME trilogy in order to finish my Shepard/Zaeed WIP, this old half-finished Shenko piece reared its head again, too. Sorry/not sorry. 
> 
> Title from my all time favourite Shepard/Alenko tune: A heart like yours in a time like this by the Deportees. (( https://youtu.be/h4g6oRCFPr4 ))

 

Eden Prime breaks them of all their habits.

That is how it starts for her.

  


* * *

  
  
  


For him it starts earlier; it starts with a joke dropped in the dead hours of transit between two systems and fitted against the small crowd of lieutenants and Commander Shepard herself who's evading questions with stonewall-humor.

It's an old trick and she masters it to perfection.

Whenever someone gets too close to breaking out of line she's stepping in - smooth as a Krogan and sensitive as one, too, but it’s a manner that gets the job done. Deflects statements and flat-out questions with a dry remark or a pun. _Definitely_ a pun. She's the type to laugh at her own jokes. The type to invoke both irritation and admiration among her subordinates. Tall, proud, boisterous Shepard who carries her reputation and merits with unshakable confidence. One in a million. 

"Go waste some time on the extranet instead," she orders when she's had enough of them. "All of you, get out of my sight."

As she walks past Kaidan, his eyes fix on hers and the corners of her mouth twitch; for a second she slows down, as though she's waiting for him to say something, offer a clever retort to match her own.

He doesn't, but she smiles at him all the same.

  


* * *

  
  
  


The Citadel is inexplicably light.

It's like a raster over everything, this bright, _crisp_ feeling as they explore the massive space station that is full of so many things that ought to weigh them down, but doesn't. Not at the moment. Not with the novelty of seeing it for themselves, with the firm convictions of reason and justice still coloring their thoughts.

"You a military brat, skipper?" Williams leans against the rail and looks down over the massive, park-like area beneath them.

"Yeah," Shepard replies; at the back of her mind there are fragments of one vessel that had felt a little more home than the others, a place whose patterns has stayed in her. The rest is motion and noise. “Your average Navy kid, mostly raised in space.”

Williams scoffs. “Average. Yeah, sure thing. I've read all about you, Commander.”  
  
That’s almost never a good thing. She leaves the matter without a comment. 

"What about you, Alenko?" Shepard asks, glancing over at the lieutenant who's scanning something with his omni-tool. He gives her a little smile but appears distracted, as though his mind is somewhere else or busy calculating some unknown variable of their surrounding that she hasn't noticed yet.

"My father served."

There's a sense of restraint about him, even in this setting. A certain kind of integrity that seems to be mistaken for shyness – _dull_ , according to some marines she's overheard, _sharp as a salarian_ , according to others – but strikes her more as an armor; she wonders against what. He's got a spotless service record, of course. Far better than her own, all things considered. Hand-picked by Anderson. Over a dozen special commendations and she had thought she had him figured out when Anderson first put Alenko on her team, had thought _I know your type_ , but there's a different slant to him, a twist she had not counted on. It rattles in her, leaves a mark.

"Salute anything you can't eat or kill," he says in passing, as they head for the Citadel Tower and Shepard chuckles under her breath.

Williams shakes her head, grinning.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Commander Shepard works hard.

At first he finds that this knowledge clashes with the public image of her, the woman who appears in stories and gossip and that debatably 'objective' documentary some years back – _Torfan - A Critical Perspective_ \- all those shallow summaries of her service.

She has a rep for questioning authorities and orders but that goes without saying. You don't get dubbed the Butcher of Torfan by asking politely to have things done your way and rumour has it Shepard very rarely _asks_. They say she's harsh and hardened, uncompromising like an admiral and straight-forward like an old-fashioned groundside battlefield.

She is all of these things, Kaidan thinks as he watches her make the rounds, constantly checking something against something else, comparing outcomes or flipping page on her datapads.

A solitary creature even surrounded by shipmates and comrades, a personality shaped by military code and a lifetime among the stars.

But there's something else there, too, in her dedication to her mission and her crew. In the dark circles around her eyes as she debriefs them about the situation on Noveria, in her face at times when she thinks nobody is looking; there's something enticingly human in her impatient voice and sharp interruptions when they ask too much or pay too little attention.

She expects everything and she'll do anything.

That, more than those things he has read or heard about her, is what makes her Shepard.

That all-consuming, inward-reaching _fire_ .  
  
"Did you want something, LT, or are you just standing in my way?" Eyes focusing on Kaidan now, who’s snapping out of his own head.  
  
"No, ma’am."   
  
Looking at her, long after she’s gone upstairs to argue with Joker about some route or detour she wants to investigate, he wonders if he wants to protect her or himself. And if it matters.  


	2. Butcher

  
“So it's Alexandra, huh?” Alenko says one day, slumping down beside her. It's one of those rare moments of peace. Of travelling. A slice of freedom in between strategy and missions.

“Did you read my file, lieutenant?” She's tired - _exhausted_ , really - from dealing with the everyday matters of this ship and she knows that question sounded harsher than she intended. The antics of her new improved interspecies crew can hardly be blamed on him. Lieutenant Alenko keeps to himself and helps out wherever he can. He's the ideal Alliance marine, all wholesome and dutiful and the rest of those adjectives from the vids that she's made fun of ever since she joined. He probably sorts his underwear by colour and folds it into neat piles so they’re easy to find when he gets out of the sleeping pod in the mornings. Maybe a schedule based on the galaxy map. Green boxers for the Terminus system, blue for Hydra.  

" _That_ classified, is it?" He raises an eyebrow, half-smiling in that wry, almost invisible little way of his. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to pry. Some of the crew were discussing it, claimed nobody in the galaxy has ever used your first name. Berret suggested your full name is Shepard Shepard."   
  
“So you had to prove her wrong?”   
  
“Intriguing minds want to know.”

“Right.” She leans back with a grin, feeling her shoulders sink a little as she inhales the smell of coffee through the indescribable smell of _Normandy_ \- a weird mix of plastic, metal and people with large damned spoonfuls of adrenaline added for good measure. Alenko holds out a mug for her.

It's easy to forget sometimes on their strange road into the heart of the battle, that there are normal things too – things like hitting the gym, watching vid-mails, eating, shaving, having coffee with a handsome subordinate. 

“Jane Alexandra Shepard, actually,” she offers, by way of marking this occasion. “But it's Shepard to everyone. Well, apart from my mum. She insists on calling me Alex.”  
  
“Your mum was on the Einstein?”   
  
Shepard nods. “For a while, yeah.”   
  
“I served with a guy who was part of the Mindoir rescue op.” Alenko takes a sof of coffee before he continues. “He had trouble talking about it for years afterwards.”   
  
It had been part of Shepard’s own imagination for a long time, too. Bits and pieces of articles, interviews, reluctant confessions from her mother - it had all merged together in her head and pulsated there like a flawed implant, flashes of light from things you almost remember. Followed, beckoned, waited for a moment to strike.   
  
_You sacrificed them, ma’am! You knew- - you let them--_   
  
_Wakefield, Rashiid, Robertson, McBain, Bengtsson, Clarke, stop counting, stop counting, stop counting._   
Even now it can reach her.   
  
“Doesn’t excuse Torfan, lieutenant,” she says and it’s not on purpose, but the words are twisted around themselves, sharp as knives.   
  
Alenko looks up, blinks. “I- uh. No ma’am. Of course not.”   
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
He doesn't know why he tells her about his childhood, about Rhana, about Vyrnus.

Perhaps it's because she asks.

Perhaps it's because he's trying to rebuild the boundaries that get a little more worn down for every day that passes. This whole run grinds everything else to dust, overshadows even the darkest corners of your mind.

“I didn't mean to unload this on you, Shepard.”

The titles have suffered the same fate as his determination not to tell superior officers about his past unless asked specifically to do so.

“I can take it.” She smiles, making a sweeping gesture up and down her body. “Look at me, one hundred percent sturdy, capable marine.”

And there's something in his chest that swells as he realises he actually believes her.

  


* * *

  
  


She isn't half as good as he thinks she is.

If Kaidan grew up on romantic space novels where the hero and heroine save each other and end the intergalactic war for all eternity, celebrating the peace in their lover's embrace, Shepard grew up on Alliance politics and gossip caught on board of whatever shuttle her parents currently were stationed on. She had quickly learned that everything had a price, that even the most heartfelt agreements usually came with a complaint of some kind and that no race is particularly eager to give another the benefit of a doubt unless there is money or power at stake. _A cynic at the age of ten_ , her mother would say, gently but with a certain edge of concern in her voice.

And then Torfan. Fucking Torfan.

Granted, these past few years have changed her, softened her in places and hardened her in others. Half the time she just swallows the bile and deals with the bullshit because it has to be done, not because she thinks it will make a difference. Not for them, not for anybody, certainly not for the galaxy. Then she lingers a while, stooped over a dead child or a stupidly brave old woman who is too old to put up a fight but does so anyway and it cuts deep into her, it _does_ , and it happens during these moments that Kaidan catches her gaze and for a fraction of a second it all stops.

Sometimes she hopes that he knows her better than she knows herself. Other times she just craves his certainty and his good heart as her own disappear beneath calloused clichés calculating the price of victory.

She lets a group of infamous batarian terrorists go just to save a handful of hostages and the decision feels thin, like a faint gasp, like she almost can't believe her own words as she watches the leader walk free. Ash glances at her with a surprised frown.

“I don't know,” she confesses as they're walking back to the shuttle, her voice low and hesitant, intended for him only. “I just... don't _know_.”

Kaidan observes her.

“Nobody does,” he says, after a while.

He places his hand on her shoulder as they slip back into the Mako, back into the great void of uncertain grey, and it's as brief and professional a touch as anything else they share but for a second – a second that's spreading, whirling deep down and snaking across all those raw uncertainties the mission has brought out – she is floored with a warmth that feels anything but detached.    
  
She isn’t half as good as he thinks she is; it’s good enough.   
  
  



	3. Purpose

  
  
Her funeral is a full-on force of pomp and protocol.

“...entrusted with a high and noble purpose...” Anderson says and Kaidan looks at the floor, counting the seconds between his own breaths. Structure, he thinks. It's important to maintain structure. One breath at the time, organizing the world around him to function at all cost. He had learned how to do this at Brain Camp and it had proved useful afterwards, when his parents looked at him and saw a stranger, unable to hide the fear in their eyes. Had worked on Eden Prime and its aftermath, works for most of his headache spells, too. Centering yourself, shutting the rest of the world away. It’s pretty useless now but he keeps at it. 

“Missing in action,” Anderson says, too, and the room seems so quiet all of a sudden. As though it finally sinks in. The truth of it all.

“I don't think _missing_ is the word when you're being thrown out of a burning ship at full velocity,” Joker says darkly beside him and Kaidan feels something snap back into place in the corner of his own mind.

 _If you make a joke_ , he thinks, not daring to continue the trail of thought. He scares himself enough as it is these days. _I wish you had died instead of her._

When they have all saluted their commander one last time, the crowd scatters. Kaidan stands outside the building like a statue, frozen for a second as he begins to calculate the near future in his own head. It doesn’t add up, not remotely.

Joker watches him uncertainly. “You wanna go for drinks or something?”

“I can't,” Kaidan answers.

It's not a lie.

  
  
\---  
  


Anderson gives him a week.

No questions asked, no assumptions made, no speculation about the need for it - just a week of blessed silence.

He spends most of it holed up in his quarters back on Arcturus station, drinking himself to sleep and nursing the hangovers.

Kaidan's gaze sweeps over the small room. It's tidy even now and he thinks about what Shepard would have to say if she could see it. _Too anal, lieutenant; you've got to be hiding something._ She had found his preference for order amusing, always teased him about neatness and perfection as she walked around in the mess of her own cabin. 

The content in his glass smell sour. He puts it to his lips, hesitates, then knocks it back in one go. The drink make his lips tingle and he pours another one, downing that too; after the third, the sharp edges around his memories begin to blur and he exhales, unaware that he's been holding his breath.

This is the last time.

Tomorrow, he knows as he swallows a large gulp of booze and closes his eyes, he will receive his hard-earned promotion. The Alliance uniform was made for the stiff upper lip routine, designed to conceal hearts and tempers and feelings. And tomorrow Staff Commander Alenko will straighten up, square his shoulders and return to his duty.

  
  
\---  
  
  
  
In his memory, she sits cross-legged in a chair, balancing a datapad and a mug of coffee in her lap. There’s a new line across her forehead, a visible lack of sleep, of rest, of _trust_. He’s noticed it, wants to be the thing that balances it for her if he can. He doesn’t know how to properly offer it so instead he offers coffee, company, an extra pair of eyes for the endless reports she’s reading.

"Whatever happens, you will still do this?” She asks suddenly. “Right?"

 _This_. She makes a sweeping gesture over the mess, meaning everything that she can't possibly put into words. The fight, the hunt, the desperately uneven way in which they put themselves on the line because somewhere, some day, it will all be worth it. Because it must be worth it, because it has to be greater than metal and scars.

"Shepard-" he cuts himself off but then he nods, slowly. "Of _course_."

Many cycles later, Kaidan understands what she had asked him once. Understands it with a force that leaves no room for questions, that has no mercy for his self-pity. He breathes and he counts. He _lives_. 

“Alliance bastard,” a colonist mutters as he walks past him; Kaidan nods his greeting all the same.

  
  



	4. Lazarus

 

_ I am Lazarus, come from the dead. Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all _ .

  
  
  


 

 

Two years and twelve days.

Where the  _ hell _ does one even begin?

  
  


* * *

 

It begins with a dream that isn't a dream, that is nothing like the waves of energy that has been crashing against the edges of her mind for God knows how long now, prickling her brain with impulses before leaving her alone again. Waves that feel like being hurled forward and then pulled back, hands sprawled and fingers clawing at something – anything – to catch hold of, without ever succeeding.

For a while she is trapped inside it, whatever  _ it _ is. Caged. She can feel her own body but she isn't really  _ there _ , as though her blood and muscles are gone and replaced by some kind of void or something distant and shapeless and she can't seem to command it or remember what it was like, doing so. How is she meant to move? What is she  _ like _ ? What is this numb collection of tissue and bones and brain impulses? There are answers on her tongue, salt-tasting bitter answers just out of reach.

“Shepard! Move.” The voice directed at her is female, impatient. “You  _ have _ to get moving.”

There's no time to protest.

Later, crouched and in pain, sitting beside a soldier who seems surprised to see her up and about, she finally remembers who she is. Remembers it the way she remembers how to walk and how to speak, like an ancient knowledge in her bones. Reluctantly, her thoughts almost hiding from her at the back of her mind, her chest constricting; it's as though she knows what to expect and knows as well that she won't like it. She looks down at the heavy pistol in her hands and thinks _Commander_ _Shepard_. And that does the trick. Just like that the memory is there again, a gunshot wound all bleeding and torn-up and she draws fresh air into her lungs wondering how it's possible, how she's even -

She had  _ died _ .

In the fires of their sudden and very unexpected defeat she had fallen - she knows this. You don't forget your own death.

She had slipped away, lost her grasp of the still somewhat solid frame of Normandy and then her mind had blanked as she was taken by the laws of gravity and space. Nobody messes with gravity and space. Not even Shepard, even if she probably had tried, she realizes. It's one of the things that comes back to her with full force: the million words people have used to describe her obsessive stubbornness.

Commander Shepard of the Normandy, she tells herself once more. It still sounds like the convenient myth it always was. First human Spectre. Sacrificial lamb of the Council.

She asks the soldier – Jacob, he is called Jacob - about the Normandy. Thinks about laser beams and burning-hot metal and escape pods and if she closes her eyes she can still see the dead, still hear the noise and feel the way Kaidan had hesitated when she barked the final command to him –  _ I gave you an order! Go. Now!  _ \- and her voice had mingled with the loud emergency calls and the screaming around them and there was a note in his voice she will never manage to forget.

_ Aye, aye, ma'am. _

God,  _ Kaidan _ . Shepard swallows. There is no escape from this. She has to know.

“What happened to the crew? Were there survivors?”

Jacob tells her the ship was wrecked, tells her the crew survived and Shepard sits back, momentarily numb with relief that quickly morphs into new doubts. The world beyond this seem very unimportant all of a sudden, her existence tied into hard knots and short, harsh questions.

“It's been two years,” he says when she asks him to contact the crew; she asks him to gather her people around her to ignore the growing suspicion of what it means that she's being without them now.

“Two  _ years _ ?” Her mouth is dry, her throat parched.

“Yeah.” Jacob looks at her and then he nods as though he senses her need for clarification.

Two years.

Shepard shakes her head.   
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It begins in a bar. (No, really, it  _ does _ . No need to pretend otherwise.)

It begins in a bar and Lieutenant Alenko doesn't look sober.

It's not that he's wasted and all over the place but he's definitely not  _ sober _ and by the look of things he's the introverted sort of drunk, too, one who goes dark and quiet and uncomfortable at the loss of control. It's rather precious. Big, strong biotic Marine, all stiff upper lip and  _ yes, ma'am, no, ma'am _ – undone by beer.

Shepard grins to herself, curling her fingers around the second glass. She's late for the party, apparently. To be entirely honest, she's not even sure she's  _ invited  _ in the first place. As the Commander, she isn't usually, and she makes no habit of crashing the shore leave gatherings but Jenkins had said they were toasting to Alenko joining the Normandy crew and this godforsaken city isn't exactly a hotspot for entertainment so now she's here.

Might as well make the best of it.

Whatever that means. She runs a hand through her hair, shuffling her thoughts around. It's been a busy month – three new faces on the Normandy, several difficult reports to write and those persistent rumours about trouble in the outskirts of the Terminus system.

They really do deserve a shore leave.

Shepard looks at Alenko who has focused his attention on the empty glass in front of him, idly moving it around on the tabletop. Around them the music appears to get even louder as a new group of privates make a noisy entrance – the kind of entrance you only make when you're young, drunk, and in the company of equally young and drunk peers.

She has never been good at that part. Being young and surrounded by friends, swept up in that carefree current of bars and dancing and dating.  _ You have an old soul _ , her father used to say, half-troubled, half-proud as his fingers ran over the pages of the dusty old books he treasured like nothing else in the world. Her entire childhood, she thinks at times, is made up of those books: the inherent mystery of decoding them, learning to read by putting the letters in her father's strange old human plays in the right order; the smell of leather and paper and history. She still remembers stray lines and the pressure of the words inside her head, their marks forever in her memory.

And a sure sign of tiredness is the way her mind leaps into the old paths, Shepard reminds herself, straightening up in her seat.

“I've never been a fan of crowds,” Alenko says suddenly, almost to himself, leaning back. He definitely looks more relaxed now, when the alcohol is wearing off slightly. He's regaining the sharp lines and edges; Shepard finds that she sort of misses the blurrier ones, their endless possibilities.

“Because of the biotics?” She brushes away some unidentified dirt from her rolled-up shirt sleeve, glancing at him.

The blunt question leaves him silent for a few seconds.

“Yeah. I suppose,” he says eventually, hesitantly as though she's prodded around in his private life. She probably has. Many biotics are sensitive about it even if she isn't. But then again, she isn't sensitive about a many things and hardly a good judge.

“I still feel it like a surge in my head sometimes,” she says, trying to shift the focus away from him. Ease the burden of forced intimacy. It will do no good to push the very capable new lieutenant away after a mere week and she can already see the Captain's face when she has to tell him.  _ Manners, Shepard. Grow some.  _ “In crowds I mean. I used to avoid them, growing up. They didn't officially detect me until I was 17.”

Alenko frowns. “That's late.”

“Yes.” She makes a noncommittal sound.

Consider it a miracle you haven't killed anyone with those powers, the Alliance instructors had told her when her biotic ability was finally properly taken care of. Shepard had nodded, bitten back a retort and shelved the images of defeated, distorted batarians around her. It was unimportant. After joining the Alliance, everything before became unimportant in an almost ritual transformation from colonist to marine, shedding skin like a snake and re-learning the meaning of most things she grew up knowing.

Shore leave does bad things to her head, that's for sure. She exhales with a little nod, brushing away the past again.

“Anyway.” She wants more to drink, but there seems to be little use for getting drunk. Besides, it doesn't look like anyone else is going to linger for much longer and Alenko is definitely not going to order anything else. Already knows him well enough to figure that out. “It got easier to endure crowds with the implant, of course. But I still remember how scared I used to be, thinking my brain would overload or something.”

“It's hard picturing you scared, ma'am.”

“Ha!” She gives a sarcastic laugh but he looks so earnest she almost feels guilty about it. “Well, I am at times. Don't tell anyone.”

There's a tiny scar on the right side of his mouth, a little line of history crossing the slight twitch of his small tucked-in smile.

“My lips are sealed.”

And she holds his gaze, briefly, but still long enough for that hesitant little edge that is still visible in the way he acts around her to dissolve a bit further. As though it's melting. Like snow. Or her own grasp of Alliance protocol and dignity.

Damn. She scratches the back of her neck distractedly, her impatience with herself sharpening.

Alenko is not her  _ type _ . Or well, Shepard can't claim to have spent enough time thinking about men to really  _ have _ a type but if she had one, she tells herself, Alenko wouldn't fit the bill. He's too disturbingly wholesome. The kind of man who probably folds his boxers in neat piles, sleeps eight hours every night and calls his mother every week. (Shepard takes all her clean laundry and shoves it haphazardly into whatever space that is available, sleeps far too little and never gets around to call anyone regularly.)

She prefers older men. Established men who aren't so damn eager to please, who have gone jaded and careless and have wives and families somewhere – in a dusty, hushed-up past or a never-mentioned present – and allows her to slip away again without a sound.

They get the job done, minimize the casualties and close the mission without leaving any marks on her heart or in her life. No  _ fuss _ .

If she has to scratch that itch they are the way to go. Older guys. Or women. Women are generally uncomplicated, too – the sort you meet in bars all over the galaxy: businesswomen, agents, freelancers, soldiers. Stable and sturdy and smooth. The kind of women who'll buy you drinks and make you scream and then be gone in the morning without as much as a sound.

“I was younger when I was detected,” Alenko says, almost on cue, his voice low and soft.

And against her will and in spite of her best intentions Shepard finds that she wants to ask  _ how old? _ and  _ what was it like? _ and  _ where did you grow up _ and he must have realised she would, because he suddenly seems perfectly sober and attentive and it sends a little jolt of heat up her spine.

Alenko, she decides, is  _ trouble _ .

  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

 

 

Perhaps the strangest part of all of this is that she doesn't  _ look _ dead. Even if she shouldn't, even if they have patched her up according to and because of the benefits of the cutting-edge medical research she's been told about, she figures there ought to be some signs of decay somewhere, a different curve in her shape or a distinct glint in her eyes. Something.  _ Anything _ .

She leans forward, steadies herself against the sink and stares into the bathroom mirror, fingers raised to mourn the scars that no longer exist. Of all the things to be concerned about, this is what she has picked, what stands out. Her scars. Miranda had merely laughed when Shepard asked about it earlier.  _ Simplest cosmetic surgery in the galaxy, Shepard. You could correct scar tissue long before the discovery of the mass relays, after all. _ As though that's answer enough: because you can.

Perhaps it's as convenient as that. She lives because she can.

Jane Alexandra Shepard. She says it slowly, says it twice, puts it in invisible writing in the air around her to remind herself that this is the truth.

That this is her.

She's seen the medical records, seen all the terms she barely understands and scanned through countless of pictures of her injuries and gradual recovery without  _ understanding _ any of it.

Her face had got off lightly - well, apart from a massive blow to her cheek where her bones and teeth have been replaced by implants. Lightly,  _ considering,  _ she points out to herself as she tilts her head in front of the mirror and looks at the only visible trace of surgery. Underneath you can still see a hint of blood and unhealed flesh. It's surrounded by smooth skin that feels much better than it used to, skin that is even and silky and  _ soft _ as her fingertips skitter along the side of her face, gently pressing down on the new-old territory. She grimaces as the edge of her thumbnail accidentally cuts into the operation wound just below her cheekbone. Then she does it again.

It hurts. It's doubtful a control-chipped human-machine would be programmed to  _ hurt _ .

Right?

The human body renews itself countless of times during the span of a person's life, she vaguely recollects from a homework deeply buried in her past. Nearly everything in the fragile human shell can be broken and mended again, regrown and bettered with a dose here and there of the right stimulant or implant. The lines separating body and soul are redrawn, have been redrawn since the giant leap in technological advances – but there  _ are _ lines, all the same.

Some things you just don't do.

Once, it were human biotics that severed the walls between what was allowed and not.   


Once, she had to learn and relearn her body's nervous system. How to recognize its narrowing paths, the endless roads between brain and body; how to fill the cavities and curves, the deep, dark space of natural human construction; how to move in order to move it, how to command the very fibers of her being and turn the fields of energy into useful power.  
  
Maybe this is not very different at all.  
  
Shepard runs a hand over her forehead, twists fingers into her hair and buries blunt nails in her scalp. There are no scars there either, no sign of invasive brain surgery, no patterns to explain this rising of the dead and she can't  _ stand _ it, not knowing how it happened.   


Her heart had stopped beating, her lungs had been emptied of air; “only slight and repairable brain damage has been detected”, she had fallen, she had died and broken in a billion pieces and yet all of that is fine now and taken care of with “nerve-stimulating implant boosting re-growth”. It makes so very little  _ sense _ .

There are numbers tied to her name, the vulgar amount of credits spent for the sake of bringing her back is spelling out her worth in large letters. Her estimated value.

“Don't you get it? The only one worth saving is you,” Miranda had told her as they were running out of the locked-down facility.  
  
Miranda expects her to be grateful. Jacob expects her to be in charge. What the hell the Illusive Man expects, Shepard doesn't know but she  _ does _ know that she has to remain here long enough to find out whatever there is to find out. If there is a choice - and so far she hasn't exactly found a loophole, save running back to the Alliance who declared her dead and explain to them that sure, she's been re-designed and branded as the most expensive resurrection project in galactic history but she's still a Systems Alliance marine, cross my heart and hope to die - she can't really make it at the moment.  
  
Right now her only option appears to be Cerberus.

"I'm not with Cerberus," she tells Tali - God,  _ Tali; _ the flurry of emotions at the sight of the quarian beats loudly in her blood for hours after they depart - in a much too empty house on Freedom's Progress and somehow the words seem to almost come without effort, like she has already managed to believe in them. Made them part of her most fundamental lies about herself. "They just fund this project."  
  
"Cerberus funds  _ you _ , Shepard," Miranda points out on their way back. It's not a nasty remark, she says it almost gently, but the shuttle isn't big enough for that sort of complexity so it falls flat.

"Don't be an idiot." Shepard stares out the window at the starry sky around them. "Unless they've implanted a control chip in my head - and for the record, I'm still not convinced they haven't - there's no way I'll join a bunch of terrorists. I did what I was asked to do; I got the leads. Now I'm out of here."

Jacob shakes his head. “It's not that simple. With all due respect-”

“Yeah, let's not pretend we have much of that going on,” Shepard says and her own lack of professionalism is causing her to wince slightly. It's a bad habit. She's worked with mercenaries and petty criminals before, turned blind eyes and cut corners; she had certainly dropped all regs and protocols in order to conduct the hunt for Saren yet it's still so very easy to fall back on Alliance morale. A comforting, safe rhythm for blood and thoughts.  
  
"So you won't save the colonists from the Collectors?" The edge in Miranda's voice is slightly sharper, but her features are as composed as ever. So far, Shepard hasn't seen her flinch or frown or in any other way display any emotions. In everything she does, Miranda Lawson is polite and cold and terribly skilled. _The Cerberus way_ , Shepard thinks, still vaguely nauseated at the mere mention of that name. "This doesn't sound like the Commander Shepard we brought back to life."  
  
Of course it doesn't.

A Shepard with an agenda of her own, with a mission funded and carried out through her own choices - that's just not the deal. That has never been the deal – not for the Alliance, not for the Council, not even for Anderson who's been like a father to her.

The thing about Shepard, she has come to understand, is that she's the perfect contradiction, so full of use for all these causes people like to associate her with. Independent and allied, with “extraordinary leadership qualities and team-building skills” according to her earliest service record and yet she has no strings attached to anyone or anything. She has no family, no ties, barely even any friends. She's fueled by her principles and held up by the kind of strength that comes from having nothing to lose and certain things don't change, not even if you die and return as Lazarus.

_ Especially  _ not then.

“I want my crew,” she says. The futility of that request hangs unspoken over each syllable that rolls off her tongue. Her crew. As though they had sworn loyalty to her alone, regardless of mission.

Jacob gives her a searching glance. “We have looked into that, Commander. If I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up, however. It's been a while-”

“There are replacements,” Miranda cuts in. “Whatever specifically trained soldiers Normandy had, we can replace them.”   


_ No, you can't.  _ It's a quick thought, short like a breath and harsh as a blow as it flutters through her body. They can't. Nothing can ever come close to what she had on the Normandy, this is a fact set in stone. Nothing,  _ never _ . She's not sentimental, but there will never be a substitute for those long months the people on SSV Normandy had worked together, growing into each other as they discarded rules and carried out a rebellion of their own and Shepard thinks about them all, allowing her mind to trace the contours of them inside her. The shape of  _ him _ still in her chest.

“I'm not big on replacements.” She doesn't mean for her voice to sound so damn choked.

“Well, it's your call, Commander.”

Deciding she has nothing more to add, Shepard looks down at her hands. Unarmed, they look a bit different than she remembers them. Smaller. Less calloused. All those tiny burns and scratches from years of battle and practice and biotic camps are gone and as the shuttle transports them the last few light years, she clenches and un-clenches her fists, thinking about Lazarus.

As far as she recalls, there was nobody who asked Lazarus if he had  _ wanted _ to return from the dead.

That was a detail that never mattered to the story.

 


	5. Past

 

There's an uninterrupted row of slow days when they patrol the outskirts of the Local cluster. It's the last stop before they're headed back to drop off some of the marines on Arcturus, too, which inevitably drives an anxious anticipation through the ship.   


Shepard has never been one for downtime.

Shore leave is one thing, she's worked out a plan for every shore leave: catch up on things, get drunk, sleep, read silly crap, eat junk food and watch action vids; it's a fixed period of time, well deserved and over too quickly. Slow days of the kind that are bound to happen to every marine on duty make her restless. It's the stagnation that gets to her, the sense of missing opportunities, that chance to  _ do _ something elsewhere. It's like she's been moving for so many years now, like she's so set on always being on her way from one place to the next - growing a spacer-heart and vagabond-feet - that lingering in one spot disagrees with her.

Something has changed, though. Not the crew, the crew is the same as ever when they see the end of a service cycle approaching and plan shore leaves and family gatherings in their heads while their bodies carry out the usual duties, a little sloppier than she wants it. It's the same old pattern of  _ Sorry, ma'am _ and  _ Right away, Commander  _ and nothing in the galaxy can modify that.

Something has changed within the small, tightly reined-in circle in which she moves aboard this ship, however.

Something has changed, and it's  _ Alenko _ of all people who has changed it with his presence.

“There are rumors on the extranet about missing people in the human colonies,” Joker says casually, flipping through the latest security scan on his monitor.

“There are always rumors on the extranet.” Alenko has sort of slipped into his role as Joker's most trusted technician without any prompting from Shepard or the Captain. Alenko's predecessor – Staff Lieutenant Davos - had been an old-school engineer, more interested in the drive cores than anything else and Joker would often complain about how dull she was. “About everything.”

Shepard sits on the command deck as she usually does during downtime periods. She writes her reports and e-mails there, watches news and vids,  _ observes _ . Her restlessness, the famous trademark of Commander Shepard, is calmed by the constant noise from monitors and screens, from casual conversations and Joker's standard monologues. He's so used to having her around that he sometimes forgets that she's there. Alenko never seems to do that.

“You scan the extranet  _ way _ too much, Joker.” Shepard looks up from a boring bunch of briefings in preparation for their next mission on Eden Prime.

“I keep telling him, Commander.” Alenko looks at her over his shoulder, his gaze warm and friendly. She can't help but smile.

It strikes her as very odd, all of it.

Shepard doesn't make friends, at least not without trouble. The mechanics of how-to seem to have got lost as she reassembled herself after Mindoir, like she's dropped some crucial piece in the process. (A man she used to date back when she was in her early twenties and drawn to hopeless causes had looked at her and said in some final evaluation of all her faults:  _ your problem is that you're both brusque and closed-off _ .)

She isn't  _ meant _ to make any friends, of course. She is meant to endure watching everyone in her unit die horribly, if that's what it takes, but even when that was not asked of her, when she was still just a low-ranking marine, she had kept her distance. Mostly by choice.

“Suck-up,” Joker mutters, glancing sideways.

Alenko laughs softly and for a second Shepard thinks she would give up her rank to be part of that, the unaffected friendship between the members of her crew, the way they link together.

That desire has nothing to do with Alenko.

Or not  _ much _ , at least.

Later, she watches him work; the closed concentration on his face as he takes his gun apart and puts it back together, oblivious to her gaze. Shepard goes over the things in her locker for the second time, cleaning out a bunch of amps she's meant to repair but never will.

“If you are throwing those away, may I have them, Commander?”

“Oh.” She turns, almost bumping into Alenko. So much for being a stealthy stalker, she thinks, wondering how long he has been aware of her attention.  _ Great _ . “Well. Sure.”

She holds out the amps in front of him, deliberately avoiding to touch his hand as he grabs them. Their eyes meet, very briefly, over the exchange.

“I salvage parts,” he explains. She hadn't thought of asking.

“For repair?” Shepard snaps the locker shut and follows suit as Alenko begins to move back to his own spot in the mess.

“Mostly, yes.”

There's a low hum coming from his body, she notices when they both fall silent. Biotics can sometimes sense each other's energy fields; she knows this, but she hasn't really experienced it before. But she can feel Alenko like a little rush of power through her veins if she allows the sensation to flood into her system, if she doesn't fight back. If she let him, she suspects, he would completely overwhelm her.   


Strange, considering. Alenko is one of the most introverted members of her crew - self-reliant, controlled, composed. He never intrudes. Even when they talk – and they have formed the habit of doing just that as of late – he makes those small bits of information about himself seem accidental, like he's not sure what the hell he's saying and Shepard's picking them up with a small frown every time, wondering if he really meant to.

Perhaps he doesn't. She's no expert and wishful thinking can be a powerfully deceptive force.

“Some of the earlier versions of the Solaris amps have kinetic enhancements that are better than the current ones,” he says before he's shaking his head, catching hold of himself. “I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to bore you with tech stuff.”

“You never bore me, Lieutenant,” she replies before she has thought it over. Once spoken, the words seem to swell, spread out between them until it's no longer possible to pretend they weren't being said. She nods towards the amps. “Could you explain the enhancements to me?”

He doesn't respond at first, as the slightest trace of doubt forms on his face. Then Alenko nods, and if she didn't know any better, Shepard could swear the humming little sound flowing between them increases as they sit down together, side by side, separated only by a piece of technology.

Friends, she tells herself.

_ Friends _ . 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


"What's taking so damn long?" Shepard throws Captain Anderson a glance. "Off the record?"   


"It's a shakedown run, Shepard, we can't risk it by rushing off."  
  
They've been at Arcturus for several days now, waiting for the all-clear. SSV Normandy, they have been told, is a prototype ship that will make them forget they've been on a cruiser with the same name for months. From the moment they step inside the  _ real _ Normandy, they will forget everything else. It sounds good, sure, but she's beginning to think it's a cover-up or something.

So far, however, this mission has merely involved a lot of waiting and mulling over the uninformative half-secrets she's managed to wring out of Anderson.

“Admiral Hackett mentioned the Council,” Shepard says, as they're walking along the massive bridge connecting the Parliament buildings with the Alliance headquarters. In the vast gardens surrounding the area that includes the largest military lodging houses and a couple of sleazy bars, large groups of marines hang out. She spots Corporal Jenkins who is chatting to the same young private he's been more or less inseparable from for the past few days. Their faces look flushed, happy. Predictably, Arcturus has been a meat market running on hormones and shore leave adrenaline since it opened. Not much to do about it.   


“Yes?” Anderson makes a sound that's a strange hybrid of a snort and a sigh. “Did he tell you this himself? Or did you just happen to stumble upon the information elsewhere?”

“Oh well.” Shepard shrugs. “Small place. Can't help but overhearing stuff sometimes.”

“You know I can't tell you anything, Shepard.” Anderson's gaze is meeting hers, briefly. He looks at her like there are things he would tell her if he had the opportunity, though, which isn't surprising. They've always played it according to their own rules when given a chance. A feeling of pride stretches out in her chest whenever she's reminded of it, spreading warmth and loyalty and that sense of being  _ trusted _ .

“I know,” she says, “I'm just getting restless, that's all.”

“You were most likely born restless,” Anderson points out, dryly, but with an unmistakable trace of somewhat reluctant amusement in his voice. She smiles to herself.

Outside the elevator going up to Admiral's lounge where their ways are bound to part, they meet Lieutenant Alenko who seems to just have left the marketplace.

“Captain Anderson.” Alenko comes to a halt. He nods as his gaze falls on Shepard. “Commander.”

“Lieutenant,” Anderson greets, then looking at Shepard again. “I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good night, both of you.”

After Anderson has disappeared into the elevator, Shepard turns around. The lieutenant doesn't seem inclined to continue on his way; he shifts slightly in his position, his gaze concentrated on her, following her movements closely.

“Shore leave shopping?” she asks, nodding towards the package in Alenko's hands. The way he looks at her feels like tiny little touches all over her skin, as though there's something invisible reaching out, linking them together. It can't be good, she decides. Most likely very unhealthy in various ways.

He half-smiles. “Something like that, I suppose.”

The question of  _ what _ he bought forms itself at the back of her tongue, but she silences it as they begin to walk slowly. She may have been spoiled by being on Anderson's good side for most of her career, being the quasi-daughter-friend more than anything else; that doesn't mean her own subordinates appreciate her intruding on their personal habits. But Alenko catches her gaze before she looks away.

“Migraine medication and an ammo upgrade for my pistol, ma'am,” he says, holding up his right hand to show her. “Incredibly exciting shore leave gadgets. I think I might be getting old.”

“Well,” Shepard narrowly escapes a collision with a woman who rushes past them on the sidewalk. Alenko seems at ease and it does something to her, seeing him like that. A rush of energy. Like she's found some hidden treasure few others know anything about. “I'm always glad to hear that members of my crew know how to have a good time. Good for the morale.”

“Right.” He slows down again as they reach a crossing. One way leading to the lodging house, the other up to the mess she's been trying to avoid all week, living off junk from the bars instead. “Must be why the Fifth fleet is going to show three Francis Kitt movies down in the  _ Flotilla _ tonight.”

Shepard chuckles at the expression in the lieutenant's face. “Not a Kitt fan?”

“I couldn't tell you if he's any good. I'm not a movie critic,” he admits; looking at the stairs to his right. “You headed for the mess-hall, as well, Commander?”

“Yeah.”  _ Apparently _ . She smiles, rolling her shoulders in what she decides is a sufficiently carefree and detached way. “I once saw his adaptation of Macbeth with an all male Salarian cast.”

“That sounds... interesting.”

“At least it was short.”

“Hah.” He grins. “I bet.”

They fall into a pleasant, comfortable silence while they're climbing the stairs. Someone once told her there are two hundred steps here and no elevator going directly from A to B. To keep the marines fit, Anderson had joked. Shepard slips into the rhythm of counting, occasionally looking to her side as though she wants to remind herself Alenko is still there.

He is.

"So, are there any news about Normandy?" When they reach the main entrance, Alenko presses the button and steps aside, waiting for her to enter. "That you can tell me about, that is."

Shepard weighs a few replies in her head, measuring them. Alenko's a career man, she has known that since he first joined. Birds of a feather, commendation after commendation and that observant little glint in his eyes as he takes in what goes on around him. If you want to do some good or make any kind of difference in a massive organisation like the Systems Alliance, you have to be willing to climb the ranks. Part of his interest in her, she gathers, is likely an interest in moving towards a promotion.

It's not strange, considering.

Usually, there's a little thread of wariness among her peers when they learn her age. A raised eyebrow or a pursed mouth, nothing dramatic but small, almost unconscious little stabs of what might be jealousy or self-doubt or all those other emotions she's never had to learn to hide from her brothers and sisters in arms. Emotions she's never had to learn to hide because she's  _ Shepard _ , the golden girl of the Alliance and always the youngest, the most famed, the one who's been dubbed a hero before her thirtieth birthday. Usually her subordinates are older than her; sometimes, she can almost hear their responses to her orders get stuck in their throats somewhere between  _ stand down, girl _ and  _ yes, ma'am _ .

One of the reasons she likes Alenko's company is because he's different. But she wonders, when all is said and done, how very different he truly  _ is _ .

“Unfortunately, I don't even have news I  _ can't _ tell you,” she says eventually.  
  
He nods. “Got it.”

The mess is so full of people they disappear in the crowd, seamlessly sliding into a long line without drawing any attention to themselves. It's a nice change. There's a slight interest in the Normandy crew, these days, they've learned. Sort of a raised awareness, because people have read about the joined efforts and the design and what will they do with the freighter anyway? Shepard is relieved they don't have to discuss it yet again. Alenko seems equally at peace with being unnoticed.

"After Torfan I almost signed up for duty here," she says conversationally as they approach today's bleak version of what is commonly known as food. “There was an opening in the biotics division. Training marines to use their powers sounded better than most alternatives.”  
  
Alenko doesn't answer at first. In fact, he's quiet for so long that Shepard regrets having mentioned Torfan of all damned things; it's rarely an opening in any conversation, more of a certain  _ rift _ . She really knows better by now. Usually.

But then Alenko looks at her over his shoulder as he's reaching for a plate.

"Would you have liked that?" he asks. Shepard is suddenly so grateful he speaks again she almost flashes a foolish grin. "Sitting tight groundside?"

It's a good question.

"Probably not.” She shovels down soup in a bowl, ignoring both the sickly coloring and the smell. “In the future, maybe. You know, when I'm ending my days behind a desk, a lonely remain from the good old days buried in bureaucracy."

They exchange a knowing smile over the food and the plates. There's always someone like that, a cautionary tale - or grim future prospect - being held up as a warning for every Alliance marine. Play your cards right, eat your vegetables and proteins and don't question your orders or you'll end up like that. A bitter ghost.

"Somehow I don't see that happening," Alenko says and there's a warmth in his tone, a warmth that still surprises and somewhat unsettles her every time she notices it. She doesn't remember anyone ever talking to her this way, didn't think people could. She doesn't remember letting him  _ in _ . “You're not the type.  _ Ma'am _ .”

In a moment of weakness Shepard wants to ask what type he thinks she  _ is _ then, but she firmly pushes that particular brand of idiocy away, returning her attention to the food in front of her.

And it's not until much later, when they've put an honest effort into eating their meals but given up and joined a few others headed towards a junk food vendor downstairs instead, that Shepard realizes she's totally forgotten what she had set out to do in the first place.

_ Damn _ it. She frowns.

“Something wrong, Commander?” Alenko asks. The words are neutral enough but she can hear the change in inflection that flutter below the surface, changing the observation into a question.

Shepard shakes her head. “Nothing.”

At least it's  _ partly _ true. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


 

In retrospect it seems she ought to remember more from Eden Prime. Head trauma, Doctor Chakwas tells her, in combination with acute stress reaction can cause these minor memory gaps and  _ fine _ , Shepard accepts that. Hell, she  _ knows _ that from actual experience.  
  
But still.

She remembers in great detail what happened before the incident with the beacon - remembers the stench of death, the red, burning earth and the terrified refugees; she remembers Jenkins, remembers Alenko kneeling beside his corpse to close his eyes and her own voice sharp and hollow telling him to focus on their mission as though berating the lieutenant would ease her own burden; she remembers Williams and the blur of running, recalls the stress of disarming bombs which she's been trained for but always hates doing and then she can't seem to remember anything else except waking up.

Time is odd, as of late.  
  
Time had sort of jumped dramatically between the restlessness of shore leave to the first dramatic hours of the shakedown run. Like the universe had been as anxious as Joker who barely could hold back a squeal of delight as he was presented to the new Normandy or Shepard herself who had been struggling, as well, to contain her delight.

Time had played tricks on them, as though the universe had known what was going to happen.

_ This _ .

"I'm glad you're okay, Commander." Alenko leans against a table out in the mess. There's a stern note in his voice, a strained reminder of recent events; his voice had been the last thing she heard when she was falling into darkness and the first thing she recalls, crawling back up from its depths. It makes her feel oddly close to him, like he's part of her somehow.  
  
"Don't worry about me," Shepard says, hoping it sounds convincing enough. She has never been able to bear the thought of other people's concern, has methodically sought to avoid its weight and implications. She looks around the room. Approximately three hours left until they reach the Citadel, according to Joker and approximately a  _ billion _ things to sort out before they do. "I'm more worried about Williams. She lost her entire unit."   


Alenko nods, serious and quiet. "That has to be tough."  
  
"It is."  
  
It's odd how you can go plenty of years, sometimes half a career, without ever facing severe losses. Shepard hears people talk about it all the damn time, their perfect records of perfectly safe missions where nobody was the slightest bit harmed and she knows she's not supposed to, but she feels a pang of irritation anyway. Misdirected fucking jealousy, perhaps. or just malice at the idea of certain individuals being  _ that _ lucky, forever spared from the peculiar, very particular kind of pain of losing people under your command.    
  
"Williams is a good soldier." Alenko searches for her gaze, a hint of something there - a need for approval, perhaps. According to Anderson he had been very insistent on bringing her along.  
  
"She is." Shepard inclines her head. “I'll talk to her later, see how she's dealing with it."

He seems to relax at that, drop his guard a few inches and it's enough for her to glance up at him and feel a flash of warmth. A ripple down her spine, a second of something  _ else _ far beyond the regs and rules; it's one of those small things that threatens to unsettle her own guard if she doesn't move carefully.

“So, we're headed for the Citadel?” His voice is carefully neutral, but there's a depth of something much more serious in it, something most resembling the shadow that has swept over the entire Normandy crew.

“Yeah.” Shepard rubs her shoulder, still feeling a bit sore from the strange experience at Eden Prime; she notices Alenko's eyes shift briefly to the curve of her neck and then – even more briefly – a bit further down. She smiles, helplessly.

She is so close to him. If she allows herself the thought, she knows with a painful clarity that she can feel the heat of his body against her side; when she moves a little her shoulder bumps into his arm and he doesn't mention it but he moves a little too, in the opposite direction.

Later the same evening,  _ far _ too late when they're all up past their bedtime and reality seems devoid of sense and logic, Shepard slumps down on a bench outside the human embassy building where the crew have been checked-in for the night as Special Guests.

__ Special, my ass.  
  
"Politics is like beating your head against a wall and then writing a report about it."

Alenko's voice, low and pleasant, like the soft hum from the large statues around them, drags her from her dozy observations back into the present. "My mother worked for a local politician back on Earth."

"Your mother sounds like a sensible woman," Shepard says, stretching out her legs in front of her and leaning back further. God, she's tense. Her spine feels like a chord strained to the point of snapping in half and her shoulders ache.  _ Stress release and massage treatments at regular intervals _ , her old Alliance training program datapads preach in her head.  _ Your body is the be-all and end-all of your career as a soldier _ . One of the girls she trained with - Katie Olsen, the only one Shepard liked hanging out with - used to recite the texts in the bars they always visited after the worst or most boring sessions, imitating both the authorities and their fellow recruits.  
  
"She is." Alenko smiles softly, but in a closed-off kind of way. She gathers  _ family _ isn't going to be the topic of the evening.  
  
“I tried to follow your advice today,” Shepard smiles back at him.  _ Salute everything you can't eat or kill.  _ She hadn't known he was funny; the insight wrecks her somehow. “I would have been more helpful if I hadn't  _ wanted _ to kill so many of them, I think.”  
  
“Sounds like it.” He folds his arms across his chest. “I don't blame you, ma'am.”

They fall silent but the silence that descends is sweet-tasting,  _ rare _ , a form of it that isn't intrusive or demanding in the slightest but leaves you to your own thoughts.

Shepard leans forward, supporting her elbows on her knees and rubbing her temples. Despite the physical tiredness she feels on edge, restless and anxious and already way ahead of herself in an uncertain future, trying to figure it out before it even happens.

There's just so much there. So many things to connect or sever, to dissect and smash into tiny pieces and put it all together again.

Eden Prime. Saren. _ Spectre _ . The mere word seems foreign, impossibly strange and oddly shaped, like an ill-fitting costume someone is trying to press her into.

And it seems, more than ever, like she's given her entire life to the Alliance. Her life as a sacrificial lamb in a ritual she can't remember performing or agreeing to.

Some days she fears she will lose the everyday life that she's never really had. The slow, comfortable slump of days. Of ordinary things happening and people coming and going. Life had been like that once and never since but the idea of never having options again sort of _sting_ , a never-healed little stitch inside. 

“Anyway,” Alenko is still standing in front of her, Shepard realizes, frowning as she looks up. “I came to tell you that everything is set up for tomorrow, ma'am. We are meeting Garrus Vakarian down in C-Sec.”

“Good.” She nods. “ _ Good _ .”

He hesitates momentarily. “Commander?”

“Yeah?”

“You should get some sleep.”

Shepard nods. He remains where he is, obviously waiting for her to either say something more or follow suit as he heads back to the rooms they've been given. When she gets to her feet to go with him, there's a flutter of something crossing his features. Whatever it is, it leaves his composure slightly altered. In the many-colored lights of the Citadel at night, it makes him look younger, more fluctuating,  _ freer _ .

As they reach their respective doors, she nudges his arm, very quickly.

“Sleep well, Lieutenant.”

Alenko's gaze travels from her face to the spot on his arm where her fingers seem to have left visible marks that  _ linger _ , marks that she almost wishes she could pull back into her own body again, undo or hide.

“You too, ma'am.”

  
  


 


	6. Monogamy

  
When she’s dead and his life has spiralled forward with the rest of the living, Kaidan can’t even remember what it was like, falling in love with her.   
  
Can’t even remember _falling_. The emotion sits there, part of his bones beneath or thoughts inside and analysing it feels like analysing why he breathes or how it is being a biotic.   
  
He remembers that she would sneak away sometimes during off-duty hours on the ship, datapad in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. If he followed her - and more often than not he did - he’d find her in some remote corner with a view of the stars outside. _Can’t remember anything before the stars,_ she told him once. _Don’t want to think of anything after._ _  
_  
He remembers that he once caught her smoking; she had immediately thrown the cigarette away, covered it with the heel of her boot and then looked at him, something rebellious in her eyes. He had grinned, stupidly, thinking that she was magnificent _._  
  
  
  
\---  
  
  
  
When she’s dead and he isn’t, he tries to remind himself how brief it was.   
  
Not even half a year, not even explicitly _anything_ , not ever official enough to require paperwork.   
  
He knows too many veterans to compare love stories and losses, knows better than that. Knows, too, the last time Shepard cried (right after Anderson’s acceptance speech at the Citadel, after too much vodka and a couple of painkillers, her arms wrapped around Kaidan’s neck, mouth salt and wet and hungry and everything around them an uneasy sense of grief and victory) and her favourite strategy for Alliance Corsair. Knows what she did for the first three months after Torfan, what meds she had to take to manage to sleep at all. Knows how badly she sings, how she couldn’t dance if her life depended on it, what songs that makes her hum along all the same, a defiant little chorus rising from her body. Knows the names of her childhood friends and how her skin tastes after battle, the pattern of birthmarks on her right shoulder and the way she sleeps spread-eagle across both him and the bed.    
  
Her name in his throat as he calls her _Commander_ and _Shepard_ and listens to everyone who think they knew her.   
  
  
  
\---  
  
  
  
When she’s dead and he’s forcing himself not to be, he is convinced to take up dating again. _Again_ , as if it’s ever been a great part of his life. As if he isn’t and will most likely always remain an introverted kind of idiot when it comes to romance, the kind that just stumbles into something if it happens at all. But it’s all in a proper transformation, he decides, and plays along with the damn thing.   
  
It’s terrible. From the beginning to the bitter end. Fucking _terrible_ and he wishes he at least was drunk enough not to care.   
  
It’s not her fault, he knows that much. Not his either, it’s just bad timing, bad choice of restaurant, bad everything. Beautiful woman sitting opposite him at the table, her fork patiently working through the dish she’s ordered - _best wild fish in the galaxy_ she had mentioned and he had not asked if there is such a thing as wild fish anymore, anywhere; he doesn’t want to sound petty - while she converses with him for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half until he stops counting the minute.   
  
Time trickles away around them and Kaidan takes another mouthful of his beer, willing himself to smile and nod, ask another question. Helen. _My brother is actually named Hector_ , she confides with an eye-roll. _Can you even believe it?_   
  
Beautiful woman with a clever mind and a sense of humor that even he, even now in his joyless self-centered misery can interpret as the dark and wicked kind.   
  
“So, tell me about the military life?” she says, leaning forward slightly across the table, trying to catch his gaze that seems to have wandered off to study the small font on the back of his beer bottle. Import. Ingredients grown in the lush gardens of Habitat 90.   
  
Get yourself together, Alenko.   
  
He clears his throat, looks into her eyes. Blue, he notes. Sharp blue ice.   
  
“What do you want to know?” 

Later, in her apartment in the lower wards where the walls can’t quite mask the rowdy gangs outside, continuing their shore leaves and weekend parties, Helen kisses him in her kitchen. She pours wine, moves slow and deliberate between the cupboards and his body and Kaidan excuses himself twice before he takes his stupidly monogamous, messed up brain and leaves.   
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


  


“I enjoy your company,” Thane says, simply, as though there is nothing more complicated lingering behind those words. As though that bit alone isn't such a rare thing on its own: finding someone who is worth the noise and the trouble.

“Don't get the wrong idea.” Shepard's own words are hollow. 

Many days later he is inside her and around her in a rush of fear and desperation that renders them both breathless. He is dying and she may very well be, too, and it tangles it all up into a harsh knot of _ache_ as he makes her come, hard and fast and starved as she is. It’s not worth it. She hides her face in the pillow afterwards, covers her body with the used sheets; Thane remains beside her for a while without speaking and she thinks about Ilos, about geth, about Horizon, about burning up as you fall through the sky. It’s not _worth_ it and it becomes the last straw, becomes the thing that is finally breaking the heart Cerberus has restored.  

Defying death or life itself and not knowing the difference.

  


\---

  
  
  


Legend states Joan of Arc's heart refused to burn. The executioners found it whole in the ashes.

  
  



End file.
